The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Teleconference systems bring multiple parties together from remote locations. There are a number of teleconference solutions for enabling participants to conduct live meetings, conferences, presentations, or other types of gatherings using the Internet, the public switched telephone network (PSTN), or other voice and data networks. Participants use a telephone, computer, or other communication device that connects to a conference system. The meetings include an audio component and a visual component, such as, a shared presentation, video, online whiteboard, or other multimedia. These types of convenient teleconference solutions have become an indispensable form of communication for businesses and individuals.
Teleconference systems that incorporate both an audio and video component may utilize one or more servers. One server, such as a PSTN server, may be responsible for connecting each participant to a single shared phone line. Another server, such as an online meeting server, may be responsible for delivering visual content to each participant's computer or other client device. The PSTN server may also communicate with the online meeting server to communicate which participants are connected to the audio conference. By doing so, the meeting server is able to deliver to a participant's computing device, the status of each participant for the purposes of keeping track of active participants.
Online teleconferences require that each participant receive both the audio and video communication at an acceptable level of quality in order to sufficiently understand what the speaker is trying to say.